Noxen Township, Wyoming County was incorporated on February
21, 1895, according to the
Pennsylvania
Historical and Museum Commission’s Bureau of Archives and History.
Noxen was incorporated from Monroe Township, which was settled in 1812 and
incorporated from Northumberland Township in 1831.
(Footnoted information on this
web page references History of Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming
Counties, Pennsylvania (New York: W. W. Munsell and Company, 1880)

Click on
the image below to see a larger
version of the Wyoming County Road Map.

Click on
the image below to see a larger
version of the Wyoming County Township Map.

Created on April 4,
1842, from part of Luzerne County and named for the Wyoming Valley.
“Wyoming” is derived from an Indian word meaning “extensive meadows.”
Tunkhannock, the county seat was incorporated as a borough on August 8,
1841, and was named for Tunkhannock Creek. The creek’s name means “small
stream.”

Wyoming shares
with its mother county, Luzerne, the Wyoming Valley tradition of the
Connecticut claims, which began in 1754, and the Yankee-Pennamite wars.
The Trenton Decree (1782), its acceptance by Connecticut (1786), and the
land claimants’ compensation statute (1807) ended the dispute. Although
not part of the geologically defined Wyoming Valley, which is in Luzerne
County, Wyoming it is one of four counties regarded as making up the
historic Wyoming Valley. Connecticut Yankees made up a large percentage of
the early settlers. The area experienced the settler exodus known as the
Great Runaway following the Wyoming Massacre (a Tory and Indian victory)
in 1778. Lacking significant coal beds, the county had primarily a lumber
economy until 1900, which gave rise to a leather tanning industry using
hemlock bark. Leather manufacture continued after the stands of hemlock
were gone. The North Branch Canal passed through the area, and Tunkhannock
was on the Lehigh Valley and Nicholson on the D. L. & W. Railroads. Grain
and dairy farming gradually increased, and about 1900 dairying replaced
lumber as the major product. Also, quarrying, especially of Pennsylvania
bluestone, has been profitable. Tanneries used cattle hides and hemlock.
The Cyrus Avery Foundry made farm equipment. The absorbent papers unit of
Procter and Gamble, established at Mehoopany in 1966, is the county’s
biggest employer. Presently, lumber and wood products, women’s apparels,
and shoes are other products of this country. Farms cover 29 percent of
the land, and dairy products dominate agricultural production.
(Pennsylvania
Historical and Museum Commission’s Bureau of Archives and History)

More Information About Pennsylvania’s Counties,
Municipalities and School Districts:

There are many ways to divide the
state into smaller geographic entities. For example, Pennsylvania has 67
counties, 2,565 municipalities, and 501 school districts, but this was not
always the case. Our counties were incorporated over a period of about 200
years between 1682 (Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester) and 1878
(Lackawanna) as more land was settled and counties were divided into new
jurisdictions.

The subdivisions of counties or municipalities,
however, change much more frequently. The first municipality in the state,
Springfield Township in Montgomery County, was incorporated in 1681 and
the most recently incorporated is Northern Cambria Borough in Cambria
County. This decade, however, also saw the disincorporation of two
municipalities – Wyomissing Hills Borough in Berks County in 2002 and East
Fork Township in Potter County in 2004 – to become part of neighboring
municipalities.

Some counties have many municipalities and
others have very few. In fact, Philadelphia County consists of just the
city of Philadelphia while Allegheny County is made up of 130
municipalities. Luzerne County has the second highest number of
municipalities at 76, while only Cameron and Forest counties have fewer
than 10 municipalities. Twelve municipalities cross county lines.

School
districts have also come and gone. In the 1960s, Pennsylvania consolidated
its more than 2,000 districts into 505. The most recent merger in 1982
brought the total number to the current 501. A few districts are
countywide, but most counties contain multiple districts. Many districts
cross municipal boundaries and some even cross county lines. (From
the Center for Rural Pennsylvania)